The art of purple prose for bookhippie
For: bookhippie
Title: The Art of Purple Prose
Pairing: Chanyeol/Chen
Rating: PG-15
Length: 6.5k
Summary: Chanyeol is a starving poet. Jongdae likes to pretend that he isn’t a fan, because it does no good to his street cred. After all, Chanyeol’s poetry is dire.
(Who’s he kidding? Jongdae has no street cred anyway.)
Author’s note: I tried.
Thanks to the people who helped me with this! ♥ You’re the best.
“And it slides down in globulous beads, similar to molten cheese.” As if to signal that the poem has ended, although somewhat abruptly to Jongdae’s discerning ears, the poet closes his book.
The audience applauds, though by this point it’s out of politeness, rather than enjoyment. There’s no chance of heckling anyone in here, not when everyone has the same starving artist look as the poet himself. It wouldn’t be fair to single one of them out over the rest.
The poet’s name is Chanyeol, and he’s very tall and very thin and performs in a different independent coffee shop each Wednesday, posted up on his Facebook the day before. It’s good to know that even when the boy doesn’t look like he gets enough to eat, his jumpers hanging off him a little too loosely, at least Korea’s internet is obtainable for everyone.
Jongdae likes to pretend he isn’t a fan. He likes to pretend that he doesn’t refresh Park Chanyeol - Poetry and Words every Tuesday evening to check how far he needs to travel the following day after work. He likes to pretend Chanyeol’s deep voice, at odds with such a nice-presumably pretty, if he ate a bit more-face, doesn’t send tingles down his spine to his toes.
As far as his friends are concerned, Jongdae just casually stumbles in on Chanyeol’s poetry sessions. The fact he stays for the entirety of the sessions is just politeness. That he can quote Chanyeol’s-frankly, somewhat dire-poetry, is just because Jongdae has a good memory.
“The boulevards are striking and pacific in the young, twilight hours, but my full heart, bursting with pure and unadulterated yearning, thinks none can compare with your luminescent and ethereal blue eyes as they gaze upon the glistening starlit skies. You also make my heart sing, like Justin Bieber.”
Jongdae had complained-slash-laughed about that one for weeks. For someone so fond of using a thesaurus, he still couldn’t work out why Chanyeol couldn’t come up with a more interesting adjective than blue for his object of affection’s eye colour. The fact he/she/they had blue eyes at all is a point Jongdae could raise, but he has better things to complain about. Like Justin Bieber. And Together:
“My heart, your heart, together in love. My legs, your legs, together entwined. My hands, your hands, touching eternity. My mind, your mind, together we last. My body, your body, the rush of warm ecstasy as we melt together.”
It doesn’t even scan properly.
At some point, poetry about hearts so full they’re bursting, and Justin Bieber, and “globulous beads of molten cheese” goes full circle and becomes so bad it’s good-funny, even, and maybe that’s another reason Jongdae stays along for the ride. He works in an office run by a manager he despises, his co-workers more concerned with sucking up and pouring the most expensive soju each Friday, and any cheer Jongdae can find outside the confines of his working life is greatly appreciated and desired.
So Jongdae stays for Chanyeol’s entire sets, watching as he packs his notebook away, takes the small envelope and tiny takeaway cup of black Americano from a staff member of the café, and then settles in the corner furthest from the door and nurses it for ten minutes before leaving. Despite how tall he is, Chanyeol always curls in on himself as he leaves, after checking nobody’s eyes are on him. Jongdae wonders why, but he never introduces himself, asks if Chanyeol is okay. He doesn’t know how, so he just watches, and hopes that wherever Chanyeol is going, he’ll be alright.
---
The next time Chanyeol is performing, it’s Joonmyun’s birthday, so Jongdae doesn’t check where he’s going to be. He can cope without seeing him for one week-Joonmyun’s whining is insufferable.
The others claim to be too busy to hang out with them and celebrate, so Jongdae, alone, meets Joonmyun after work and follows him to his favourite coffee shop, a little quaint building down an alley in Hongdae.
They’re just ordering-mocha and a biscuit for Jongdae, hot chocolate with whipped cream and a blueberry muffin for Joonmyun, who is far more health-conscious than Jongdae usually (he actually finds time in his busy schedule to work out), but wants to splurge for his birthday-when Jongdae notices the microphone in the corner of the room.
“Must be some sort of event on,” Joonmyun says. “I tend to like their singers.”
They settle down in the corner with their food and drinks, and Joonmyun is partway through a story about his manager-a man almost as insufferable as Jongdae’s own-when a very familiar voice filters through.
He must have already introduced himself, because when Jongdae notices he’s already partway through his poem.
“The beautifully-shaped leaves, no longer chartreuse but now burgundy in the bright autumn sky, float to the earth, as soft as liquid ice on your nose when you cry, so beautifully, for me.”
Jongdae wrinkles his nose. “I’ve heard this one before,” he mutters. “He’s reusing his poems now.”
Joonmyun, sensing that Jongdae is distracted, pauses in his story and curves to look over his shoulder at Chanyeol. “Is he your poet?” he asks. “The one you stalk?”
Okay, so maybe Joonmyun doesn’t believe him when he claims to not be a fan.
“I do not stalk him,” Jongdae hisses. “I just-you know-”
“I do know,” Joonmyun says, sagely. “He’s very handsome. I see why you like him.”
Jongdae narrows his eyes at Joonmyun. Joonmyun is straight, and has no interest in boys, but there is a point to be made. Or maybe Jongdae is just possessive.
“You should say hello,” Joonmyun continues. “Let the poor boy know he has a fan. He could probably do with one.” He wrinkles his nose as Chanyeol rhymes parrot with frigate. Jongdae still hasn’t worked out where the poem about pirates came from. It seems incongruous with the rest of Chanyeol’s sap and stupidity.
“It’s not that easy,” Jongdae responds. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Buy him a cupcake and tell him you think he’s sweet,” Joonmyun says with a shrug.
Jongdae wrinkles his nose. “Ewwww. No,” he says. “Absolutely not,” he adds, for good measure.
But Joonmyun is relentless, and Jongdae finds himself bullied into buying a pastry-some kind of chocolate-filled monstrosity that looks like it could feed five people-and taking it over to Chanyeol as he’s packing up.
“Hi,” Jongdae says.
Chanyeol looks stunned to see him-that someone has come over. Jongdae isn’t surprised; in all the months that he’s watched Chanyeol’s shows, nobody ever went to talk to him afterwards, aside from café staff.
Absently, Jongdae wonders if Chanyeol even has friends. He must do. Everyone has friends.
“This is for you,” Jongdae says, placing the pastry on the table in front of Chanyeol. “It seems like it must be hungry work.”
Chanyeol, eyes still wide behind his black-rimmed glasses, nods. He drags the paper bag towards him slowly. Jongdae puts his hand flat on the table in front of him, watching Chanyeol carefully. The sudden movement spooks Chanyeol, who pulls away from the pastry as if he was taking something he shouldn’t have. He looks up at Jongdae with slightly magnified eyes even wider than Jongdae thought possible.
“It’s for you,” Jongdae repeats, slowly, like he’s talking to a child who needs reassurance. This shyness, nervousness, is slightly concerning in an adult male. Where are his friends?
“Really?” Chanyeol says.
“Yeah,” Jongdae says.
Reassured, Chanyeol resumes pulling the pastry towards him, before peeling the paper back and ripping off a portion of the bread and stuffing it into his mouth. He reminds Jongdae of a nervous, hungry cat. “Thank you.”
“I-uh, I’m Kim Jongdae,” Jongdae introduces himself, awkwardly. He’s not usually this bad, but up close Chanyeol is actually more handsome, and slightly less skinny-looking, and it’s distracting.
“Thank you, Kim Jongdae-sshi,” Chanyeol says. He smiles up at Jongdae, with these huge eyes that suddenly remind Jongdae of a puppy. He can imagine the soft ears Chanyeol would have, flopping over his head, his furry tail thumping the floor. Jongdae is torn between three options: shaking his head to get rid of the image, smiling back with an equally toothy smile, and wrinkling his nose at the unnecessary honorifics. He thinks he probably does a combination of all of them, and then somewhat panics in case Chanyeol thinks he’s being rude.
“Just Jongdae is fine,” he mutters, quickly. “Anyway, I-I had best be off. It’s my friend’s birthday. I’ll see you.”
“See you next week, Jongdae,” Chanyeol responds.
Jongdae is in his seat before he realises that that means Chanyeol remembers him.
---
It’s a little easier the next week. Jongdae waits at a table at the back, a blueberry muffin wrapped in a little brown paper bag. He nurses his coffee and laughs quietly as Chanyeol proudly proclaims that his newest poem is titled Wings of Love.
”I feel like I’m flying, high in the air with these wings of love. Every time I see you, my heart soars, on these wings of love. I just want to see you all day, baby, with these wings of love. When we’re together, I get wings-wings of love.”
Strangely enough, Jongdae’s only thought is that these sound like song lyrics to a particularly cheesy early 2000s pop song. And Jongdae doesn’t hate it. This is almost worrying.
Everything becomes normal in the next few moments, when Chanyeol begins Cider:
Cider cider cider cider, the only word to describe you is cider, you bubble up inside me like a refreshing drink of iced cold cider-”
Jongdae must have dozed off for a moment from watching Chanyeol’s pink lips move, his lower lip thicker and plumper than his top lip in a particularly enticing way. He clearly isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the inanity passing through Chanyeol’s pretty lips, because the next thing he notices is people applauding, signalling the end of Chanyeol’s shift.
Chanyeol takes the coffee and envelope from the staff member and then heads over to Jongdae’s table.
“Jongdae,” he says, quietly in greeting. He seems to have taken Jongdae’s “just Jongdae” at face value, as there are no honorifics added, like they’re old friends.
“Chanyeol,” Jongdae replies, in kind. The name is warm on his tongue, even though he doesn’t think he’s ever said it aloud before. “Help yourself,” he adds, waving to the paper bag.
Chanyeol smiles warmly and takes the paper bag, breaking a chunk off the muffin immediately and clearly relishing it. It’s a far cry from how Chanyeol was the previous week. Jongdae doesn’t know whether he misses it or not.
Jongdae offers the seat opposite him wordlessly and Chanyeol sinks into it gratefully.
“How are you?” Chanyeol asks, halfway through the muffin. He’s eating slower today, so Jongdae presumes he was fed earlier. He’s still pleased that he bought the muffin though-Chanyeol with chipmunk cheeks, filled with food, is a sight he wants to savour forever.
Jongdae shrugs. “Same as always,” he says, even though Chanyeol can’t possibly know. It’s not like they’re friends.
Chanyeol nods anyway. “Yeah,” he says. “Long day?”
“Always,” Jongdae repeats. “It’s always a long day.” He looks at Chanyeol. “How about you?”
“I spend my days writing poems, doing chores, and trying not to let my roommates kill me or each other,” Chanyeol says. He sounds serious, but he’s still smiling.
So he does have friends. Jongdae is strangely pleased by this revelation.
Chanyeol’s eyes sparkle, food and company clearly putting him in a good mood, and Jongdae finds himself drawn towards them. He could probably drown in Chanyeol’s eyes if he let himself. Instead, he forces himself not to look into them directly. He quite likes living.
Their conversation peters out at that, but even so, Jongdae leaves the café much happier than he usually does.
---
It becomes a familiar routine; Jongdae buying a pastry for Chanyeol-always something different, to keep him on his toes-and Chanyeol coming to his table after his show to eat it and chat quietly about small bits of their daily lives for twenty minutes.
Seeing Chanyeol was always the highlight of Jongdae’s week, but this-this is more than that.
There comes a point where Jongdae feels comfortable calling Chanyeol his friend. He knows more about him than he’d ever thought he would: Chanyeol is two months younger than Jongdae and still in university, though Jongdae gets the distinct impression that he’s a postgraduate student-Master’s or PhD, he doesn’t quite know, and Chanyeol skirts around the topic when he’s asked.
Chanyeol lives with two same-aged friends, the aforementioned murderous roommates: “they’re brats, but don’t tell them I said that.” He loves cats but is allergic to them, and he completely doesn’t know what he wants to do with his future.
“I know I want to be on stage,” Chanyeol admits. “I love the rush of adrenaline.”
Jongdae doesn’t say it, but he’s long been convinced that poetry isn’t Chanyeol’s true calling. But he clearly is born to be on stage. Acting, singing, rapping, stand-up comedy-the list of things he might be good at is endless, but it’s not poetry. The longer Jongdae talks to him, the more he realises that, with validation from even one person-himself, unintentionally-, Chanyeol’s confidence spikes. He leaves each coffee shop with his head held high now, rather than curled up in on himself like before. He’s even cheekily started requesting more chocolate pastries. Jongdae tells him he’s pushing his luck, but obliges him anyway. Joonmyun calls him weak.
When Jongdae calls Chanyeol his friend for the first time, Joonmyun vehemently doesn’t agree.
“He’s basically your little date-buddy at this point,” he says, more than once. “I’d call him your boyfriend but it takes two for that. Just ask him out and make it official.”
Jongdae always sticks his tongue out at that point. Joonmyun knows nothing.
---
The comfortable silence between them is broken by Chanyeol humming-some pop song Jongdae vaguely recognises but doesn’t know the words to.
It comes to him in a flash, a reminder of a previous thought from a few weeks ago. “Have you ever thought about singing?” Jongdae asks, sitting and leaning forwards on his elbows in one movement. “I feel like your poetry could work well with a beat.” What he actually means is would probably not sound as terrible put to music, but he’s not going to say it like that. He doesn’t want to hurt Chanyeol’s feelings. He doesn’t want puppy Chanyeol back-cute though he was, confident Chanyeol is more attractive.
Chanyeol looks up from his chocolate cake-Jongdae had gone all out today-in surprise. “I never considered it, no,” he says. “I’m not sure I can sing; I just hum a little.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jongdae says, and he smiles. “You could even rap.”
And yet Chanyeol seems strangely opposed to the idea, the next time Jongdae suggests it. He claims to be scared, or tone deaf, or not musically inclined. That his poems are meant to be spoken, not sung.
Jongdae is fairly certain these are all untrue. After all, Chanyeol stands in a coffee shop once a week in front of strangers and softly announces that “ethereal tendrils of honest love” are “blossoming from the centre of his pounding chest” with a straight face, painfully serious and candid. And poetry to music has always been a thing. He can’t comment on Chanyeol’s musical ability, but he looks like he wouldn’t be quite so bad at it. He says so.
“I’ll think about it,” Chanyeol says, finally. “Give me a few weeks.”
Jongdae shrugs.
---
Jongdae only lasts two weeks-two weeks of suffering through “my heart is as chewy as the peppermint gum you just threw out” and “my throbbing chest expands drastically like sweet strawberry bubblegum” (was he even trying?)-before he cracks and asks Chanyeol if he’s thought about his idea.
Chanyeol shrugs. “Sorry,” he says, and pushes his glasses further up his nose. “I’ve had some other things to think about. I’ll get back to you on that next week. There’s something I want to say then, too.”
Jongdae perks up at that-what could he possibly mean? He refuses to say what it is, no matter how Jongdae wheedles and begs and buys him the largest double chocolate chip muffin the café has to offer.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Chanyeol promises, his smile full of chocolate.
---
It isn’t like there are a shortage of independent coffee shops in Seoul, so usually Chanyeol doesn’t do repetitions. Sometimes it’s inevitable, though. Maybe other cafés are full, or busy, or don’t want his horrific poetry ruining the ambiance-that one is unlikely, but still possible, in Jongdae’s opinion.
This week is at the same coffee shop that he originally started performing in.
Jongdae is surprised as he reads the note on Facebook; pointing out the significance.
“It’s been seventeen weeks, four months, since I began performing. It’s been a long time, so I thought I would go back to where this venture began. I hope to see you all tonight.”
Jongdae can’t believe it’s been four months. He hadn’t found Chanyeol in the first week, but he thinks it must have been the third or fourth, and something-probably Chanyeol’s face-had made him look him up on Facebook and follow him the next week. So it must be about fourteen weeks. Three long months of poetry about fluttering hearts and beautiful blue skies and chewing gum and frigates. Two months of sitting with Chanyeol and chatting about anything and everything and nothing.
There’s something in the way Chanyeol has worded his statement that makes it seem like an ending, like something final. Like soon Jongdae won’t be able to go and find Chanyeol and listen to him allude to sex in the fluffiest way he can manage. And it makes Jongdae feel a little sad.
All of Chanyeol’s poems on Wednesday are ones that he has already done; nothing new. They’re all compiled together into one collection of just utter sap. It’s every poem Chanyeol has ever done which talked about hearts beating and souls singing and love crying out. It’s every poem Chanyeol ever mentioned hope in.
Jongdae is ready to applaud, when Chanyeol says, “To finish off, I’d like to perform Cat, for someone special.”
He doesn’t look into the audience, instead looks resolutely down at his book.
“Every time you smile at me, I am reminded of a cat-a fluffy, whiskered, purring thing, with your laughing eyes and your curved lips. I feel like when you look at me, I am the cream, that you are drinking dry. And that’s okay, because I want to be cleaned dry. I want you to take me inside of you so that I warm your stomach and your heart. I want to pet you and just hear you purr, because you are my cat, and I am your willing human. I will let you, Cat, and I won’t leave you. You’re my Cat, and I’m your man.”
It’s so-so bizarre, and it doesn’t scan, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but something in Jongdae’s chest tightens. This is the first time Chanyeol’s ever described a-would this count as a love interest?-with any real descriptors. Jongdae doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel.
“That was my last poem,” Chanyeol says. His voice almost shakes. “Thank you for being such a good audience. I hope we will meet again one day.”
The audience applaud, as Chanyeol shuts his book. Jongdae doesn’t, his hands resting limply in front of him. He’d wondered, panicked even, about this being the last performance ever, but he’d reassured himself that he was making a mountain out of a molehill. It was nothing.
Except it’s not nothing. This is it. Where’s Jongdae going to get his weekly dose of Chanyeol cuteness from, now? When’s he going to get the chance to sit down with the boy he likes and subtly flirt via food?
He’s still shocked when Chanyeol sits down opposite him, settling his coffee, in its recyclable cardboard cup, down before him. He doesn’t even notice the slice of Victoria sponge, untouched before Jongdae. Instead, he just looks at Jongdae, with a strange look on his face. “Hey,” Chanyeol says. “You look…” He shrugs, like he can’t think of the word.
Jongdae doesn’t want to embarrass himself by revealing his feelings so easily, especially when he can’t quite explain them without sounding creepy, so he looks away and shrugs as well.
“I was just wondering,” Chanyeol says, slowly, “are you free now?”
Jongdae wasn’t expecting that. “Yeah,” he says, after he swallows thickly.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says. “Let me finish my drink.”
“The cake too,” Jongdae says, pushing it towards him.
Chanyeol smiles, for the first time, and he gets up and goes to the counter. When he comes back, it’s with another fork. “Share it with me,” he says, moving the cake back to the centre of the table.
It’s the first time he’s made such an offer. Jongdae nods, and breaks off a piece with the other fork. It’s been a long time since Jongdae had cake, and it’s actually delicious.
They don’t talk as they eat and drink, Jongdae finishing the dregs of his long-cold mocha, and yet the silence doesn’t seem as oppressive as it could do. In fact, sitting here peacefully with Chanyeol, sharing cake, feels like a date. And it feels comfortable.
When the cake is finished, Chanyeol leads them out of the café and towards the train station, and Jongdae follows in silent confusion, wondering what’s going to happen next.
---
Of all places he was expecting Chanyeol to take him, his home was not one of them.
“I’m home!” Chanyeol calls as he kicks his shoes off in the hallway. There are shoes everywhere-smart black work shoes and pristine white trainers and brown ankle boots and soft blue slippers all the way down the entrance corridor. The walls are blue.
Jongdae slides out of his work shoes carefully, pushing them neatly next to the door.
“You’re home early!” comes the response, from the left. Chanyeol leads Jongdae through to the sitting room, where two young men, both dressed much the same way as Chanyeol in oversized hoodies and jeans, are curled up in front of a somewhat enormous television with controllers in their hands. Jongdae suddenly remembers he’s still in his suit, and feels overdressed. Almost casually, he loosens his tie.
Also that’s a really big television. He suddenly wonders how much money the three of them have together. Chanyeol had been starving.
The rest of the room is fairly spacious as well, and every inch of wall space seems to be covered in bookshelves, mostly full of nonfiction-music books, art books, poetry books, psychology books. There’s a guitar in the corner, in front of a shelf of books about learning to play a variety of musical instruments. Jongdae marvels at it all and barely notices when Chanyeol introduces him.
“Guys, this is Jongdae,” Chanyeol says. “Jongdae, these are my roommates, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.” He indicates each. Baekhyun is the one with the huge smile and Kyungsoo is the one who seems to be both surprised and angry, simultaneously. Jongdae wonders if he’s offended him somehow, without meaning to.
“Oh!” Baekhyun exclaims, and he pauses the game they’re playing-Mario Kart, Jongdae thinks. Kyungsoo turns his eyes on Baekhyun, who doesn’t even flinch. “It’s nice to meet you finally. Chanyeol talks a lot about you.”
“Only good things, I hope?” Jongdae says, dutifully. There’s not much they could know, though. Chanyeol probably knows less about him than he knows about Chanyeol.
Baekhyun just grins, but it’s not mean.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be in here,” Chanyeol says, almost too quickly-like he’s afraid Baekhyun will say something Chanyeol will regret. “You were still playing Overwatch when I left.”
“We went away for a moment and when we came back none of our characters were available,” Baekhyun says. “So we decided to take a break. You know Soo doesn’t like how other people play Sombra.”
“I don’t like how you play Sombra,” Kyungsoo mutters.
Jongdae has barely played Overwatch, so most of this goes over his head. It looks like it goes over Chanyeol’s head too. He just shrugs and heads through to another room, throwing, “Play nice, boys,” over his shoulder. Jongdae hurries after him.
They move into the kitchen, which is small but cosy. There’s a little kitchen table in there with a couple of chairs around it. The grey countertops are surprisingly clean and empty, just the appliances on show. There’s a big grey pot on the cooker, and Chanyeol heads over to take a peek.
“He made us jjigae!” Chanyeol says happily. He turns to face the doorway. “Soo!” he calls. “Is this jjigae ready?”
“No!” Kyungsoo shouts back. “Don’t you dare lift that lid, Park Chanyeol!”
Chanyeol, who was touching the lid, freezes, and steadily moves away. Jongdae laughs. It’s fun, seeing him at home, like this.
Chanyeol settles down at the kitchen table, and Jongdae copies him. “So you’re probably wondering about everything.”
Jongdae just nods.
Chanyeol’s expression grows serious. “I-haven’t been open with you, and you deserve that from me. As you can tell from my flat,” he waves around the room, “I am not living in a slum. I am a postgraduate student doing my Master’s in Psychology. My thesis is on the psychological negative effects on the daily life of a starving artist. I did my Bachelor’s degree in acting, which involved a massive amount of method acting, so I decided to live as a starving poet for three months.”
“But you’ve been doing this for four months,” Jongdae says quietly.
“I was supposed to stop last month,” Chanyeol admits, “but I didn’t want to lose the chance to talk to you each week. So I kept going.”
Jongdae feels a strange warmth in his chest, and he smiles softly at the table.
“The experiment was so difficult at the beginning,” Chanyeol says, also looking away. “I never had enough money to eat, and nobody ever talked to me. I was trying so hard to be interesting and make people care, but nobody ever did. The first two weeks, I lived off my savings and the money I was given from the coffee shops. I didn’t eat very much. So Baek and Soo insisted on moving in with me, to make sure I’d eat and that the bills were paid. Without them, I’d have given up long ago.” When Jongdae lifts his head slightly, Chanyeol is looking directly at him, a strange look in his eye. “Without you, I’d also have given up.” He swallows. “You have no idea how close I was to giving up, that week you came to say hello. The boys weren’t around that week, and I hadn’t eaten in two days, and then you appeared, like-” He shrugs, not finishing his sentence. “And then you fed me. I’d seen you before-I saw you from the first time you arrived. You didn’t look like one of the others. You were always in a suit and you’d start off the session looking so grumpy and at the end of it you’d be smiling and laughing, and I was so happy I was able to make you happier. And then you came to say hello.” He reaches across the table. Jongdae looks at his hands-large, pale hands with callouses on the edges of his fingers from holding pens for long periods of time at awkward angles-and then slowly places his own, smaller hands, onto the table. Chanyeol’s hands dwarf his as he holds them, and then he smiles. It’s a little too affectionate for Jongdae to understand what it means. “Thank you, Jongdae,” he says.
It-it feels like a confession, even if it wasn’t meant as one. Jongdae’s cheeks heat up. Maybe he should give one in return. “My boss is awful,” he says. “So I would always leave work angry. One day I just happened to walk in on one of your shows, and I was just,” he chooses the word carefully, “intrigued, so I looked you up. And you’re right. You do make me happy.” He swallows, like he’s admitted too much, and doesn’t look up at Chanyeol. Instead, he asks, “Do you like poetry?”
Chanyeol shrugs. There’s a smile on his face that wasn’t there before. “It’s a lot of work,” he says. “It can take me ages to write a poem. I find them hard.”
“But do you like them?”
“I guess? I’m kind of proud of some of them. It’s really hard when you go in on nothing. It’s nothing like song writing.”
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “I think they would be much better put to music.”
This time, Chanyeol laughs. “I think you’re right,” he says. “But music is safe for me. Kyungsoo said I should play my guitar in a coffee shop, but I don’t know if I can sing, and I couldn’t include someone else in the experiment, because then it’d get too messy and we’d be trying to share even less money between us. Poetry was something new for me, but it could easily have been comedy, or something else.”
“Wings of Love is just an early 2000s pop song,” Jongdae says. “You could play it to any four-chord tune and it would fit in perfectly.”
“Well, I do write song lyrics,” Chanyeol says. “I guess that’s where I got my inspiration from.”
There’s a lull in the conversation for a moment, as Jongdae tries to take in what he’s learnt. Chanyeol is not actually a starving artist, he’s a semi-starving university student who was acting as an artist in order to write a psychological thesis.
Jongdae wonders if he should feel betrayed, lied to even, but he doesn’t. Instead, he’s just relieved, that the boy he likes isn’t in any danger now the experiment is over.
“What are your plans now?” Jongdae asks.
“I have to finish my thesis,” Chanyeol says. “I have to submit the first draft next week. It’s ninety percent done, because I was writing it as I went.” He stops, and looks away. “You’re in a lot of it. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Jongdae says, softly.
“I’m not sure what I’ll do after it’s submitted. Probably have a really long holiday, and then get upset. I like performing for people, so I think I’ll miss it.”
“Well,” Jongdae says, slowly, “I can sing. So if you want someone to sing your songs…”
Chanyeol looks surprised, like he hadn’t been expecting the offer. “That would be-” he begins.
“Alright, lovebirds,” Baekhyun announces loudly, drowning out what Chanyeol was going to say, as he walks into the kitchen, “Kyungsoo tells me food is ready.”
Jongdae splutters and almost pulls his hands away from Chanyeol’s, but Chanyeol holds on tighter, rubbing little circles on the back of his hands with his thumbs. His smile grows warmer. So do Jongdae’s cheeks.
Kyungsoo walks in a moment later and rolls his eyes. “None of that at dinner, please,” he says. He lifts the pot off the cooker and onto a mat on the middle of the table. Baekhyun hands out bowls and spoons, and Kyungsoo ladles out the jjigae-kimchi, Jongdae’s favourite. It smells magnificent and tastes even better.
At the end of the meal, when Chanyeol’s helping Baekhyun do the washing up, Kyungsoo says, quiet enough that they can’t hear him, “Welcome to the family, Jongdae.”
If Park Chanyeol - Poetry and Words becomes Park Chanyeol and Kim Jongdae - Music and Words, and if Chanyeol lets Jongdae read his thesis and marvel out the amount of times “the man with the catlike smile” is mentioned, and if Chanyeol celebrates their first successful gig-one with more than just polite applause at the end of it, but legitimate praise-by kissing Jongdae full on the mouth,-well, nobody has to know.
Daily Life in the BaekDoPark House (Outtakes):
1)
“This is such a bad idea,” Kyungsoo says, curled up on Chanyeol’s sofa like he lives here. He doesn’t. “You don’t even know how to write poetry. Or cook. How on earth are you going to survive for three months?”
“It’s fine,” Chanyeol says. “I’ve stockpiled some ramyun.”
“You’re going to die,” Kyungsoo says, dryly.
2)
Chanyeol wakes up, on the sofa, to find not just Kyungsoo but also Baekhyun in his house. At first he thinks they’re hallucinations-it’s been so long since he’s eaten proper food.
Kyungsoo settles next to Chanyeol with a bowl and a spoon in his hand. “Open up,” he demands, and Chanyeol is too sleepy and hungry to argue. He opens his mouth and allows Kyungsoo to spoon soup into his mouth. It’s mild-delicious and full of vegetables, and he finishes the bowl as quickly as Kyungsoo will allow him.
“Better?” Baekhyun asks. When Chanyeol nods, he says, “Good.” A moment later, “We live here now. You can’t be trusted.”
They settle ground rules, without Chanyeol even being able to protest. If Chanyeol cleans, they will feed him and make sure the rent and bills are paid.
Chanyeol has literally the best friends in the world.
3)
Chanyeol has literally the worst friends in the world.
“Oh my god,” Baekhyun says, tears streaming down his face. He’s clutching his stomach as laughter rips through him. “Make it stop, it hurts.” He laughs some more.
Chanyeol looks down at his pad of paper. He didn’t think it was that bad.
Kyungsoo, on the other hand, isn’t laughing. Instead, he’s looking like he hates life. This isn’t unusual for Kyungsoo, and it isn’t even unusual that Chanyeol’s on the receiving end of this look. But this look in particular is more malevolent than usual.
“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol asks, a little nervously.
Kyungsoo stands up, and moves to the hallway, out of sight. His disembodied voice announces, “If you use the word ‘ethereal’ one more time, I’m going to throw myself down your stairs. It can’t hurt me in the afterlife.”
“Ethereal heavens?” Chanyeol calls back. “I thought that was a nice description.”
He can hear Kyungsoo’s groan from up the stairs.
4)
“So,” Kyungsoo says. “Who is the person who has been feeding you junk food and pastries?”
“That’s his boyfriend,” Baekhyun says. “He won’t let me go to any of his shows now in case I scare him off.”
“Well, you do have a tendency to cry with laughter every time you see one of Chanyeol’s shows,” Kyungsoo argues. “I can see why he wouldn’t want you near his boy-” It sinks in. “Wait, you have a boyfriend? How come he knew before me?” He pokes Baekhyun in the side.
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Chanyeol whines. “He’s called Jongdae and he’s really cute and reminds me of a cat.”
“But he feeds you,” Kyungsoo says slowly.
“Pastries and cakes,” Chanyeol says. “Sometimes I don’t get lunch? It’s nice.”
“You’re going to die from malnutrition.”
5)
“My heart, your heart, together in love. My legs, your legs, together entwined. My mind, your mind, together we last.” Chanyeol pauses. “I feel like there’s something missing.”
“My head, our hard wood floor, finally the sweet release of death,” Kyungsoo deadpans, from where he’s spread out, face down, on the floor.
“No,” Chanyeol says, “not that. But thanks anyway.”
6)
“The cat is the most magnificent, majestic beast on the entire planet, and I have this desire to be eternally close to the most beautiful of these, a stunning young man-”
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol asks, poking his head around the door into Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s shared bedroom. The noise coming from the room is astronomical, and Chanyeol is concerned the neighbours will complain to the police about it.
“What does it look like we’re doing?” Baekhyun says. He points at the two computer screens, where a bright and colourful, quick-moving game is playing. “We’re playing Overwatch. I am winning.”
“You’re quoting Chanyeol’s poetry at me,” Kyungsoo says, dryly. “It’s only making me mad. When I get mad, I want to win.”
“It’s not all your poetry,” Baekhyun admits. “Some of it’s inspired by it. And I’m still winning. He keeps screaming every time I use an adverb for ‘beating heart’ that isn’t actually the word ‘beating’. Your thesaurus is really useful, did you know that? I now know fifty new words and can describe ‘blue’ in twenty different ways.”
Kyungsoo kicks Baekhyun’s chair. As they’re both on wheelie chairs, they both sail slowly away from their computers, and promptly both of their characters are killed.
They turn towards Chanyeol, slowly.
“Um,” Chanyeol says, “please don’t kill me or each other. Blood is hard to clean. I’m just going to go and write something that doesn’t use the word ‘blood’ now…” He scurries away, quickly.
7)
Kyungsoo walks over to the window and opens it. He leans over the windowsill and looks down at the ground, the world’s most disappointed look on his face. “It’s a pity we’re on the first floor,” he says. “I thought I might be able to escape from the pirate poem. I hate the pirate poem.”
“What?” Baekhyun says, fake shock in his voice. “How can you not like the masterpiece that is, “I am the world’s foremost pirate. Sitting lightly on my broad shoulders is my trusty red parrot, as we sail the seven deep aquamarine oceans on my fabulous frigate”? You’re letting the side down, Kyungsoo.”
“It doesn’t sound like that,” Chanyeol whines from the corner, where he’s cleaning his guitar. “You’re making it sound worse than it is.”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “You described the sea in three different shades of blue. Yours is so much worse.”
8)
Chanyeol whines, obnoxiously loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun asks, poking his head around Chanyeol’s bedroom door.
“My thesis reads like a thirteen year old’s diary,” Chanyeol complains. “Please help me fix it.”
Baekhyun looks over his shoulder and begins reading. There’s a load of science, a load of internal feelings and what they mean, and then suddenly a whole bit about the cute boy with the catlike smile who always feeds Chanyeol. “I see what you mean,” Baekhyun says, and pats him on the shoulder. “Just try and ease up on how many times you profess your love for this boy so the markers know you’re still serious.” He pauses. “Keep this draft version for when you actually ask Jongdae out. I think he’d appreciate how much you’re in love with him.”
Chanyeol buries his head in his arms and mock-cries.
(He does keep the draft. And Jongdae does love it.)
9)
Baekhyun is on the floor crying again. “Oh, please,” Baekhyun says. “Please call Jongdae a cat one more time. Please tell the world how you want to be inside-”
Kyungsoo throws Chanyeol’s thesaurus at him. It misses him by a good ten centimetres, and opens onto synonyms for “Inside”. Baekhyun cries some more.
“Well, I mean, it could be worse,” Kyungsoo says, his voice tired.
“Aww,” Chanyeol says, with a wide grin. “I’m glad you like it, Soo!”
“I mean, I know you’ve written poems about sex,” Kyungsoo says. “I’ve read your poetry book. I know it could be worse.” He puts on a deeper voice, the one he always uses for mimicking Chanyeol. “Fill me up like a lighthouse at-”
Chanyeol squeaks and throws himself at Kyungsoo.
Title: The Art of Purple Prose
Pairing: Chanyeol/Chen
Rating: PG-15
Length: 6.5k
Summary: Chanyeol is a starving poet. Jongdae likes to pretend that he isn’t a fan, because it does no good to his street cred. After all, Chanyeol’s poetry is dire.
(Who’s he kidding? Jongdae has no street cred anyway.)
Author’s note: I tried.
Thanks to the people who helped me with this! ♥ You’re the best.
“And it slides down in globulous beads, similar to molten cheese.” As if to signal that the poem has ended, although somewhat abruptly to Jongdae’s discerning ears, the poet closes his book.
The audience applauds, though by this point it’s out of politeness, rather than enjoyment. There’s no chance of heckling anyone in here, not when everyone has the same starving artist look as the poet himself. It wouldn’t be fair to single one of them out over the rest.
The poet’s name is Chanyeol, and he’s very tall and very thin and performs in a different independent coffee shop each Wednesday, posted up on his Facebook the day before. It’s good to know that even when the boy doesn’t look like he gets enough to eat, his jumpers hanging off him a little too loosely, at least Korea’s internet is obtainable for everyone.
Jongdae likes to pretend he isn’t a fan. He likes to pretend that he doesn’t refresh Park Chanyeol - Poetry and Words every Tuesday evening to check how far he needs to travel the following day after work. He likes to pretend Chanyeol’s deep voice, at odds with such a nice-presumably pretty, if he ate a bit more-face, doesn’t send tingles down his spine to his toes.
As far as his friends are concerned, Jongdae just casually stumbles in on Chanyeol’s poetry sessions. The fact he stays for the entirety of the sessions is just politeness. That he can quote Chanyeol’s-frankly, somewhat dire-poetry, is just because Jongdae has a good memory.
“The boulevards are striking and pacific in the young, twilight hours, but my full heart, bursting with pure and unadulterated yearning, thinks none can compare with your luminescent and ethereal blue eyes as they gaze upon the glistening starlit skies. You also make my heart sing, like Justin Bieber.”
Jongdae had complained-slash-laughed about that one for weeks. For someone so fond of using a thesaurus, he still couldn’t work out why Chanyeol couldn’t come up with a more interesting adjective than blue for his object of affection’s eye colour. The fact he/she/they had blue eyes at all is a point Jongdae could raise, but he has better things to complain about. Like Justin Bieber. And Together:
“My heart, your heart, together in love. My legs, your legs, together entwined. My hands, your hands, touching eternity. My mind, your mind, together we last. My body, your body, the rush of warm ecstasy as we melt together.”
It doesn’t even scan properly.
At some point, poetry about hearts so full they’re bursting, and Justin Bieber, and “globulous beads of molten cheese” goes full circle and becomes so bad it’s good-funny, even, and maybe that’s another reason Jongdae stays along for the ride. He works in an office run by a manager he despises, his co-workers more concerned with sucking up and pouring the most expensive soju each Friday, and any cheer Jongdae can find outside the confines of his working life is greatly appreciated and desired.
So Jongdae stays for Chanyeol’s entire sets, watching as he packs his notebook away, takes the small envelope and tiny takeaway cup of black Americano from a staff member of the café, and then settles in the corner furthest from the door and nurses it for ten minutes before leaving. Despite how tall he is, Chanyeol always curls in on himself as he leaves, after checking nobody’s eyes are on him. Jongdae wonders why, but he never introduces himself, asks if Chanyeol is okay. He doesn’t know how, so he just watches, and hopes that wherever Chanyeol is going, he’ll be alright.
---
The next time Chanyeol is performing, it’s Joonmyun’s birthday, so Jongdae doesn’t check where he’s going to be. He can cope without seeing him for one week-Joonmyun’s whining is insufferable.
The others claim to be too busy to hang out with them and celebrate, so Jongdae, alone, meets Joonmyun after work and follows him to his favourite coffee shop, a little quaint building down an alley in Hongdae.
They’re just ordering-mocha and a biscuit for Jongdae, hot chocolate with whipped cream and a blueberry muffin for Joonmyun, who is far more health-conscious than Jongdae usually (he actually finds time in his busy schedule to work out), but wants to splurge for his birthday-when Jongdae notices the microphone in the corner of the room.
“Must be some sort of event on,” Joonmyun says. “I tend to like their singers.”
They settle down in the corner with their food and drinks, and Joonmyun is partway through a story about his manager-a man almost as insufferable as Jongdae’s own-when a very familiar voice filters through.
He must have already introduced himself, because when Jongdae notices he’s already partway through his poem.
“The beautifully-shaped leaves, no longer chartreuse but now burgundy in the bright autumn sky, float to the earth, as soft as liquid ice on your nose when you cry, so beautifully, for me.”
Jongdae wrinkles his nose. “I’ve heard this one before,” he mutters. “He’s reusing his poems now.”
Joonmyun, sensing that Jongdae is distracted, pauses in his story and curves to look over his shoulder at Chanyeol. “Is he your poet?” he asks. “The one you stalk?”
Okay, so maybe Joonmyun doesn’t believe him when he claims to not be a fan.
“I do not stalk him,” Jongdae hisses. “I just-you know-”
“I do know,” Joonmyun says, sagely. “He’s very handsome. I see why you like him.”
Jongdae narrows his eyes at Joonmyun. Joonmyun is straight, and has no interest in boys, but there is a point to be made. Or maybe Jongdae is just possessive.
“You should say hello,” Joonmyun continues. “Let the poor boy know he has a fan. He could probably do with one.” He wrinkles his nose as Chanyeol rhymes parrot with frigate. Jongdae still hasn’t worked out where the poem about pirates came from. It seems incongruous with the rest of Chanyeol’s sap and stupidity.
“It’s not that easy,” Jongdae responds. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Buy him a cupcake and tell him you think he’s sweet,” Joonmyun says with a shrug.
Jongdae wrinkles his nose. “Ewwww. No,” he says. “Absolutely not,” he adds, for good measure.
But Joonmyun is relentless, and Jongdae finds himself bullied into buying a pastry-some kind of chocolate-filled monstrosity that looks like it could feed five people-and taking it over to Chanyeol as he’s packing up.
“Hi,” Jongdae says.
Chanyeol looks stunned to see him-that someone has come over. Jongdae isn’t surprised; in all the months that he’s watched Chanyeol’s shows, nobody ever went to talk to him afterwards, aside from café staff.
Absently, Jongdae wonders if Chanyeol even has friends. He must do. Everyone has friends.
“This is for you,” Jongdae says, placing the pastry on the table in front of Chanyeol. “It seems like it must be hungry work.”
Chanyeol, eyes still wide behind his black-rimmed glasses, nods. He drags the paper bag towards him slowly. Jongdae puts his hand flat on the table in front of him, watching Chanyeol carefully. The sudden movement spooks Chanyeol, who pulls away from the pastry as if he was taking something he shouldn’t have. He looks up at Jongdae with slightly magnified eyes even wider than Jongdae thought possible.
“It’s for you,” Jongdae repeats, slowly, like he’s talking to a child who needs reassurance. This shyness, nervousness, is slightly concerning in an adult male. Where are his friends?
“Really?” Chanyeol says.
“Yeah,” Jongdae says.
Reassured, Chanyeol resumes pulling the pastry towards him, before peeling the paper back and ripping off a portion of the bread and stuffing it into his mouth. He reminds Jongdae of a nervous, hungry cat. “Thank you.”
“I-uh, I’m Kim Jongdae,” Jongdae introduces himself, awkwardly. He’s not usually this bad, but up close Chanyeol is actually more handsome, and slightly less skinny-looking, and it’s distracting.
“Thank you, Kim Jongdae-sshi,” Chanyeol says. He smiles up at Jongdae, with these huge eyes that suddenly remind Jongdae of a puppy. He can imagine the soft ears Chanyeol would have, flopping over his head, his furry tail thumping the floor. Jongdae is torn between three options: shaking his head to get rid of the image, smiling back with an equally toothy smile, and wrinkling his nose at the unnecessary honorifics. He thinks he probably does a combination of all of them, and then somewhat panics in case Chanyeol thinks he’s being rude.
“Just Jongdae is fine,” he mutters, quickly. “Anyway, I-I had best be off. It’s my friend’s birthday. I’ll see you.”
“See you next week, Jongdae,” Chanyeol responds.
Jongdae is in his seat before he realises that that means Chanyeol remembers him.
---
It’s a little easier the next week. Jongdae waits at a table at the back, a blueberry muffin wrapped in a little brown paper bag. He nurses his coffee and laughs quietly as Chanyeol proudly proclaims that his newest poem is titled Wings of Love.
”I feel like I’m flying, high in the air with these wings of love. Every time I see you, my heart soars, on these wings of love. I just want to see you all day, baby, with these wings of love. When we’re together, I get wings-wings of love.”
Strangely enough, Jongdae’s only thought is that these sound like song lyrics to a particularly cheesy early 2000s pop song. And Jongdae doesn’t hate it. This is almost worrying.
Everything becomes normal in the next few moments, when Chanyeol begins Cider:
Cider cider cider cider, the only word to describe you is cider, you bubble up inside me like a refreshing drink of iced cold cider-”
Jongdae must have dozed off for a moment from watching Chanyeol’s pink lips move, his lower lip thicker and plumper than his top lip in a particularly enticing way. He clearly isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the inanity passing through Chanyeol’s pretty lips, because the next thing he notices is people applauding, signalling the end of Chanyeol’s shift.
Chanyeol takes the coffee and envelope from the staff member and then heads over to Jongdae’s table.
“Jongdae,” he says, quietly in greeting. He seems to have taken Jongdae’s “just Jongdae” at face value, as there are no honorifics added, like they’re old friends.
“Chanyeol,” Jongdae replies, in kind. The name is warm on his tongue, even though he doesn’t think he’s ever said it aloud before. “Help yourself,” he adds, waving to the paper bag.
Chanyeol smiles warmly and takes the paper bag, breaking a chunk off the muffin immediately and clearly relishing it. It’s a far cry from how Chanyeol was the previous week. Jongdae doesn’t know whether he misses it or not.
Jongdae offers the seat opposite him wordlessly and Chanyeol sinks into it gratefully.
“How are you?” Chanyeol asks, halfway through the muffin. He’s eating slower today, so Jongdae presumes he was fed earlier. He’s still pleased that he bought the muffin though-Chanyeol with chipmunk cheeks, filled with food, is a sight he wants to savour forever.
Jongdae shrugs. “Same as always,” he says, even though Chanyeol can’t possibly know. It’s not like they’re friends.
Chanyeol nods anyway. “Yeah,” he says. “Long day?”
“Always,” Jongdae repeats. “It’s always a long day.” He looks at Chanyeol. “How about you?”
“I spend my days writing poems, doing chores, and trying not to let my roommates kill me or each other,” Chanyeol says. He sounds serious, but he’s still smiling.
So he does have friends. Jongdae is strangely pleased by this revelation.
Chanyeol’s eyes sparkle, food and company clearly putting him in a good mood, and Jongdae finds himself drawn towards them. He could probably drown in Chanyeol’s eyes if he let himself. Instead, he forces himself not to look into them directly. He quite likes living.
Their conversation peters out at that, but even so, Jongdae leaves the café much happier than he usually does.
---
It becomes a familiar routine; Jongdae buying a pastry for Chanyeol-always something different, to keep him on his toes-and Chanyeol coming to his table after his show to eat it and chat quietly about small bits of their daily lives for twenty minutes.
Seeing Chanyeol was always the highlight of Jongdae’s week, but this-this is more than that.
There comes a point where Jongdae feels comfortable calling Chanyeol his friend. He knows more about him than he’d ever thought he would: Chanyeol is two months younger than Jongdae and still in university, though Jongdae gets the distinct impression that he’s a postgraduate student-Master’s or PhD, he doesn’t quite know, and Chanyeol skirts around the topic when he’s asked.
Chanyeol lives with two same-aged friends, the aforementioned murderous roommates: “they’re brats, but don’t tell them I said that.” He loves cats but is allergic to them, and he completely doesn’t know what he wants to do with his future.
“I know I want to be on stage,” Chanyeol admits. “I love the rush of adrenaline.”
Jongdae doesn’t say it, but he’s long been convinced that poetry isn’t Chanyeol’s true calling. But he clearly is born to be on stage. Acting, singing, rapping, stand-up comedy-the list of things he might be good at is endless, but it’s not poetry. The longer Jongdae talks to him, the more he realises that, with validation from even one person-himself, unintentionally-, Chanyeol’s confidence spikes. He leaves each coffee shop with his head held high now, rather than curled up in on himself like before. He’s even cheekily started requesting more chocolate pastries. Jongdae tells him he’s pushing his luck, but obliges him anyway. Joonmyun calls him weak.
When Jongdae calls Chanyeol his friend for the first time, Joonmyun vehemently doesn’t agree.
“He’s basically your little date-buddy at this point,” he says, more than once. “I’d call him your boyfriend but it takes two for that. Just ask him out and make it official.”
Jongdae always sticks his tongue out at that point. Joonmyun knows nothing.
---
The comfortable silence between them is broken by Chanyeol humming-some pop song Jongdae vaguely recognises but doesn’t know the words to.
It comes to him in a flash, a reminder of a previous thought from a few weeks ago. “Have you ever thought about singing?” Jongdae asks, sitting and leaning forwards on his elbows in one movement. “I feel like your poetry could work well with a beat.” What he actually means is would probably not sound as terrible put to music, but he’s not going to say it like that. He doesn’t want to hurt Chanyeol’s feelings. He doesn’t want puppy Chanyeol back-cute though he was, confident Chanyeol is more attractive.
Chanyeol looks up from his chocolate cake-Jongdae had gone all out today-in surprise. “I never considered it, no,” he says. “I’m not sure I can sing; I just hum a little.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jongdae says, and he smiles. “You could even rap.”
And yet Chanyeol seems strangely opposed to the idea, the next time Jongdae suggests it. He claims to be scared, or tone deaf, or not musically inclined. That his poems are meant to be spoken, not sung.
Jongdae is fairly certain these are all untrue. After all, Chanyeol stands in a coffee shop once a week in front of strangers and softly announces that “ethereal tendrils of honest love” are “blossoming from the centre of his pounding chest” with a straight face, painfully serious and candid. And poetry to music has always been a thing. He can’t comment on Chanyeol’s musical ability, but he looks like he wouldn’t be quite so bad at it. He says so.
“I’ll think about it,” Chanyeol says, finally. “Give me a few weeks.”
Jongdae shrugs.
---
Jongdae only lasts two weeks-two weeks of suffering through “my heart is as chewy as the peppermint gum you just threw out” and “my throbbing chest expands drastically like sweet strawberry bubblegum” (was he even trying?)-before he cracks and asks Chanyeol if he’s thought about his idea.
Chanyeol shrugs. “Sorry,” he says, and pushes his glasses further up his nose. “I’ve had some other things to think about. I’ll get back to you on that next week. There’s something I want to say then, too.”
Jongdae perks up at that-what could he possibly mean? He refuses to say what it is, no matter how Jongdae wheedles and begs and buys him the largest double chocolate chip muffin the café has to offer.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Chanyeol promises, his smile full of chocolate.
---
It isn’t like there are a shortage of independent coffee shops in Seoul, so usually Chanyeol doesn’t do repetitions. Sometimes it’s inevitable, though. Maybe other cafés are full, or busy, or don’t want his horrific poetry ruining the ambiance-that one is unlikely, but still possible, in Jongdae’s opinion.
This week is at the same coffee shop that he originally started performing in.
Jongdae is surprised as he reads the note on Facebook; pointing out the significance.
“It’s been seventeen weeks, four months, since I began performing. It’s been a long time, so I thought I would go back to where this venture began. I hope to see you all tonight.”
Jongdae can’t believe it’s been four months. He hadn’t found Chanyeol in the first week, but he thinks it must have been the third or fourth, and something-probably Chanyeol’s face-had made him look him up on Facebook and follow him the next week. So it must be about fourteen weeks. Three long months of poetry about fluttering hearts and beautiful blue skies and chewing gum and frigates. Two months of sitting with Chanyeol and chatting about anything and everything and nothing.
There’s something in the way Chanyeol has worded his statement that makes it seem like an ending, like something final. Like soon Jongdae won’t be able to go and find Chanyeol and listen to him allude to sex in the fluffiest way he can manage. And it makes Jongdae feel a little sad.
All of Chanyeol’s poems on Wednesday are ones that he has already done; nothing new. They’re all compiled together into one collection of just utter sap. It’s every poem Chanyeol has ever done which talked about hearts beating and souls singing and love crying out. It’s every poem Chanyeol ever mentioned hope in.
Jongdae is ready to applaud, when Chanyeol says, “To finish off, I’d like to perform Cat, for someone special.”
He doesn’t look into the audience, instead looks resolutely down at his book.
“Every time you smile at me, I am reminded of a cat-a fluffy, whiskered, purring thing, with your laughing eyes and your curved lips. I feel like when you look at me, I am the cream, that you are drinking dry. And that’s okay, because I want to be cleaned dry. I want you to take me inside of you so that I warm your stomach and your heart. I want to pet you and just hear you purr, because you are my cat, and I am your willing human. I will let you, Cat, and I won’t leave you. You’re my Cat, and I’m your man.”
It’s so-so bizarre, and it doesn’t scan, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but something in Jongdae’s chest tightens. This is the first time Chanyeol’s ever described a-would this count as a love interest?-with any real descriptors. Jongdae doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel.
“That was my last poem,” Chanyeol says. His voice almost shakes. “Thank you for being such a good audience. I hope we will meet again one day.”
The audience applaud, as Chanyeol shuts his book. Jongdae doesn’t, his hands resting limply in front of him. He’d wondered, panicked even, about this being the last performance ever, but he’d reassured himself that he was making a mountain out of a molehill. It was nothing.
Except it’s not nothing. This is it. Where’s Jongdae going to get his weekly dose of Chanyeol cuteness from, now? When’s he going to get the chance to sit down with the boy he likes and subtly flirt via food?
He’s still shocked when Chanyeol sits down opposite him, settling his coffee, in its recyclable cardboard cup, down before him. He doesn’t even notice the slice of Victoria sponge, untouched before Jongdae. Instead, he just looks at Jongdae, with a strange look on his face. “Hey,” Chanyeol says. “You look…” He shrugs, like he can’t think of the word.
Jongdae doesn’t want to embarrass himself by revealing his feelings so easily, especially when he can’t quite explain them without sounding creepy, so he looks away and shrugs as well.
“I was just wondering,” Chanyeol says, slowly, “are you free now?”
Jongdae wasn’t expecting that. “Yeah,” he says, after he swallows thickly.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says. “Let me finish my drink.”
“The cake too,” Jongdae says, pushing it towards him.
Chanyeol smiles, for the first time, and he gets up and goes to the counter. When he comes back, it’s with another fork. “Share it with me,” he says, moving the cake back to the centre of the table.
It’s the first time he’s made such an offer. Jongdae nods, and breaks off a piece with the other fork. It’s been a long time since Jongdae had cake, and it’s actually delicious.
They don’t talk as they eat and drink, Jongdae finishing the dregs of his long-cold mocha, and yet the silence doesn’t seem as oppressive as it could do. In fact, sitting here peacefully with Chanyeol, sharing cake, feels like a date. And it feels comfortable.
When the cake is finished, Chanyeol leads them out of the café and towards the train station, and Jongdae follows in silent confusion, wondering what’s going to happen next.
---
Of all places he was expecting Chanyeol to take him, his home was not one of them.
“I’m home!” Chanyeol calls as he kicks his shoes off in the hallway. There are shoes everywhere-smart black work shoes and pristine white trainers and brown ankle boots and soft blue slippers all the way down the entrance corridor. The walls are blue.
Jongdae slides out of his work shoes carefully, pushing them neatly next to the door.
“You’re home early!” comes the response, from the left. Chanyeol leads Jongdae through to the sitting room, where two young men, both dressed much the same way as Chanyeol in oversized hoodies and jeans, are curled up in front of a somewhat enormous television with controllers in their hands. Jongdae suddenly remembers he’s still in his suit, and feels overdressed. Almost casually, he loosens his tie.
Also that’s a really big television. He suddenly wonders how much money the three of them have together. Chanyeol had been starving.
The rest of the room is fairly spacious as well, and every inch of wall space seems to be covered in bookshelves, mostly full of nonfiction-music books, art books, poetry books, psychology books. There’s a guitar in the corner, in front of a shelf of books about learning to play a variety of musical instruments. Jongdae marvels at it all and barely notices when Chanyeol introduces him.
“Guys, this is Jongdae,” Chanyeol says. “Jongdae, these are my roommates, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.” He indicates each. Baekhyun is the one with the huge smile and Kyungsoo is the one who seems to be both surprised and angry, simultaneously. Jongdae wonders if he’s offended him somehow, without meaning to.
“Oh!” Baekhyun exclaims, and he pauses the game they’re playing-Mario Kart, Jongdae thinks. Kyungsoo turns his eyes on Baekhyun, who doesn’t even flinch. “It’s nice to meet you finally. Chanyeol talks a lot about you.”
“Only good things, I hope?” Jongdae says, dutifully. There’s not much they could know, though. Chanyeol probably knows less about him than he knows about Chanyeol.
Baekhyun just grins, but it’s not mean.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be in here,” Chanyeol says, almost too quickly-like he’s afraid Baekhyun will say something Chanyeol will regret. “You were still playing Overwatch when I left.”
“We went away for a moment and when we came back none of our characters were available,” Baekhyun says. “So we decided to take a break. You know Soo doesn’t like how other people play Sombra.”
“I don’t like how you play Sombra,” Kyungsoo mutters.
Jongdae has barely played Overwatch, so most of this goes over his head. It looks like it goes over Chanyeol’s head too. He just shrugs and heads through to another room, throwing, “Play nice, boys,” over his shoulder. Jongdae hurries after him.
They move into the kitchen, which is small but cosy. There’s a little kitchen table in there with a couple of chairs around it. The grey countertops are surprisingly clean and empty, just the appliances on show. There’s a big grey pot on the cooker, and Chanyeol heads over to take a peek.
“He made us jjigae!” Chanyeol says happily. He turns to face the doorway. “Soo!” he calls. “Is this jjigae ready?”
“No!” Kyungsoo shouts back. “Don’t you dare lift that lid, Park Chanyeol!”
Chanyeol, who was touching the lid, freezes, and steadily moves away. Jongdae laughs. It’s fun, seeing him at home, like this.
Chanyeol settles down at the kitchen table, and Jongdae copies him. “So you’re probably wondering about everything.”
Jongdae just nods.
Chanyeol’s expression grows serious. “I-haven’t been open with you, and you deserve that from me. As you can tell from my flat,” he waves around the room, “I am not living in a slum. I am a postgraduate student doing my Master’s in Psychology. My thesis is on the psychological negative effects on the daily life of a starving artist. I did my Bachelor’s degree in acting, which involved a massive amount of method acting, so I decided to live as a starving poet for three months.”
“But you’ve been doing this for four months,” Jongdae says quietly.
“I was supposed to stop last month,” Chanyeol admits, “but I didn’t want to lose the chance to talk to you each week. So I kept going.”
Jongdae feels a strange warmth in his chest, and he smiles softly at the table.
“The experiment was so difficult at the beginning,” Chanyeol says, also looking away. “I never had enough money to eat, and nobody ever talked to me. I was trying so hard to be interesting and make people care, but nobody ever did. The first two weeks, I lived off my savings and the money I was given from the coffee shops. I didn’t eat very much. So Baek and Soo insisted on moving in with me, to make sure I’d eat and that the bills were paid. Without them, I’d have given up long ago.” When Jongdae lifts his head slightly, Chanyeol is looking directly at him, a strange look in his eye. “Without you, I’d also have given up.” He swallows. “You have no idea how close I was to giving up, that week you came to say hello. The boys weren’t around that week, and I hadn’t eaten in two days, and then you appeared, like-” He shrugs, not finishing his sentence. “And then you fed me. I’d seen you before-I saw you from the first time you arrived. You didn’t look like one of the others. You were always in a suit and you’d start off the session looking so grumpy and at the end of it you’d be smiling and laughing, and I was so happy I was able to make you happier. And then you came to say hello.” He reaches across the table. Jongdae looks at his hands-large, pale hands with callouses on the edges of his fingers from holding pens for long periods of time at awkward angles-and then slowly places his own, smaller hands, onto the table. Chanyeol’s hands dwarf his as he holds them, and then he smiles. It’s a little too affectionate for Jongdae to understand what it means. “Thank you, Jongdae,” he says.
It-it feels like a confession, even if it wasn’t meant as one. Jongdae’s cheeks heat up. Maybe he should give one in return. “My boss is awful,” he says. “So I would always leave work angry. One day I just happened to walk in on one of your shows, and I was just,” he chooses the word carefully, “intrigued, so I looked you up. And you’re right. You do make me happy.” He swallows, like he’s admitted too much, and doesn’t look up at Chanyeol. Instead, he asks, “Do you like poetry?”
Chanyeol shrugs. There’s a smile on his face that wasn’t there before. “It’s a lot of work,” he says. “It can take me ages to write a poem. I find them hard.”
“But do you like them?”
“I guess? I’m kind of proud of some of them. It’s really hard when you go in on nothing. It’s nothing like song writing.”
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “I think they would be much better put to music.”
This time, Chanyeol laughs. “I think you’re right,” he says. “But music is safe for me. Kyungsoo said I should play my guitar in a coffee shop, but I don’t know if I can sing, and I couldn’t include someone else in the experiment, because then it’d get too messy and we’d be trying to share even less money between us. Poetry was something new for me, but it could easily have been comedy, or something else.”
“Wings of Love is just an early 2000s pop song,” Jongdae says. “You could play it to any four-chord tune and it would fit in perfectly.”
“Well, I do write song lyrics,” Chanyeol says. “I guess that’s where I got my inspiration from.”
There’s a lull in the conversation for a moment, as Jongdae tries to take in what he’s learnt. Chanyeol is not actually a starving artist, he’s a semi-starving university student who was acting as an artist in order to write a psychological thesis.
Jongdae wonders if he should feel betrayed, lied to even, but he doesn’t. Instead, he’s just relieved, that the boy he likes isn’t in any danger now the experiment is over.
“What are your plans now?” Jongdae asks.
“I have to finish my thesis,” Chanyeol says. “I have to submit the first draft next week. It’s ninety percent done, because I was writing it as I went.” He stops, and looks away. “You’re in a lot of it. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Jongdae says, softly.
“I’m not sure what I’ll do after it’s submitted. Probably have a really long holiday, and then get upset. I like performing for people, so I think I’ll miss it.”
“Well,” Jongdae says, slowly, “I can sing. So if you want someone to sing your songs…”
Chanyeol looks surprised, like he hadn’t been expecting the offer. “That would be-” he begins.
“Alright, lovebirds,” Baekhyun announces loudly, drowning out what Chanyeol was going to say, as he walks into the kitchen, “Kyungsoo tells me food is ready.”
Jongdae splutters and almost pulls his hands away from Chanyeol’s, but Chanyeol holds on tighter, rubbing little circles on the back of his hands with his thumbs. His smile grows warmer. So do Jongdae’s cheeks.
Kyungsoo walks in a moment later and rolls his eyes. “None of that at dinner, please,” he says. He lifts the pot off the cooker and onto a mat on the middle of the table. Baekhyun hands out bowls and spoons, and Kyungsoo ladles out the jjigae-kimchi, Jongdae’s favourite. It smells magnificent and tastes even better.
At the end of the meal, when Chanyeol’s helping Baekhyun do the washing up, Kyungsoo says, quiet enough that they can’t hear him, “Welcome to the family, Jongdae.”
If Park Chanyeol - Poetry and Words becomes Park Chanyeol and Kim Jongdae - Music and Words, and if Chanyeol lets Jongdae read his thesis and marvel out the amount of times “the man with the catlike smile” is mentioned, and if Chanyeol celebrates their first successful gig-one with more than just polite applause at the end of it, but legitimate praise-by kissing Jongdae full on the mouth,-well, nobody has to know.
Daily Life in the BaekDoPark House (Outtakes):
1)
“This is such a bad idea,” Kyungsoo says, curled up on Chanyeol’s sofa like he lives here. He doesn’t. “You don’t even know how to write poetry. Or cook. How on earth are you going to survive for three months?”
“It’s fine,” Chanyeol says. “I’ve stockpiled some ramyun.”
“You’re going to die,” Kyungsoo says, dryly.
2)
Chanyeol wakes up, on the sofa, to find not just Kyungsoo but also Baekhyun in his house. At first he thinks they’re hallucinations-it’s been so long since he’s eaten proper food.
Kyungsoo settles next to Chanyeol with a bowl and a spoon in his hand. “Open up,” he demands, and Chanyeol is too sleepy and hungry to argue. He opens his mouth and allows Kyungsoo to spoon soup into his mouth. It’s mild-delicious and full of vegetables, and he finishes the bowl as quickly as Kyungsoo will allow him.
“Better?” Baekhyun asks. When Chanyeol nods, he says, “Good.” A moment later, “We live here now. You can’t be trusted.”
They settle ground rules, without Chanyeol even being able to protest. If Chanyeol cleans, they will feed him and make sure the rent and bills are paid.
Chanyeol has literally the best friends in the world.
3)
Chanyeol has literally the worst friends in the world.
“Oh my god,” Baekhyun says, tears streaming down his face. He’s clutching his stomach as laughter rips through him. “Make it stop, it hurts.” He laughs some more.
Chanyeol looks down at his pad of paper. He didn’t think it was that bad.
Kyungsoo, on the other hand, isn’t laughing. Instead, he’s looking like he hates life. This isn’t unusual for Kyungsoo, and it isn’t even unusual that Chanyeol’s on the receiving end of this look. But this look in particular is more malevolent than usual.
“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol asks, a little nervously.
Kyungsoo stands up, and moves to the hallway, out of sight. His disembodied voice announces, “If you use the word ‘ethereal’ one more time, I’m going to throw myself down your stairs. It can’t hurt me in the afterlife.”
“Ethereal heavens?” Chanyeol calls back. “I thought that was a nice description.”
He can hear Kyungsoo’s groan from up the stairs.
4)
“So,” Kyungsoo says. “Who is the person who has been feeding you junk food and pastries?”
“That’s his boyfriend,” Baekhyun says. “He won’t let me go to any of his shows now in case I scare him off.”
“Well, you do have a tendency to cry with laughter every time you see one of Chanyeol’s shows,” Kyungsoo argues. “I can see why he wouldn’t want you near his boy-” It sinks in. “Wait, you have a boyfriend? How come he knew before me?” He pokes Baekhyun in the side.
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Chanyeol whines. “He’s called Jongdae and he’s really cute and reminds me of a cat.”
“But he feeds you,” Kyungsoo says slowly.
“Pastries and cakes,” Chanyeol says. “Sometimes I don’t get lunch? It’s nice.”
“You’re going to die from malnutrition.”
5)
“My heart, your heart, together in love. My legs, your legs, together entwined. My mind, your mind, together we last.” Chanyeol pauses. “I feel like there’s something missing.”
“My head, our hard wood floor, finally the sweet release of death,” Kyungsoo deadpans, from where he’s spread out, face down, on the floor.
“No,” Chanyeol says, “not that. But thanks anyway.”
6)
“The cat is the most magnificent, majestic beast on the entire planet, and I have this desire to be eternally close to the most beautiful of these, a stunning young man-”
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol asks, poking his head around the door into Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s shared bedroom. The noise coming from the room is astronomical, and Chanyeol is concerned the neighbours will complain to the police about it.
“What does it look like we’re doing?” Baekhyun says. He points at the two computer screens, where a bright and colourful, quick-moving game is playing. “We’re playing Overwatch. I am winning.”
“You’re quoting Chanyeol’s poetry at me,” Kyungsoo says, dryly. “It’s only making me mad. When I get mad, I want to win.”
“It’s not all your poetry,” Baekhyun admits. “Some of it’s inspired by it. And I’m still winning. He keeps screaming every time I use an adverb for ‘beating heart’ that isn’t actually the word ‘beating’. Your thesaurus is really useful, did you know that? I now know fifty new words and can describe ‘blue’ in twenty different ways.”
Kyungsoo kicks Baekhyun’s chair. As they’re both on wheelie chairs, they both sail slowly away from their computers, and promptly both of their characters are killed.
They turn towards Chanyeol, slowly.
“Um,” Chanyeol says, “please don’t kill me or each other. Blood is hard to clean. I’m just going to go and write something that doesn’t use the word ‘blood’ now…” He scurries away, quickly.
7)
Kyungsoo walks over to the window and opens it. He leans over the windowsill and looks down at the ground, the world’s most disappointed look on his face. “It’s a pity we’re on the first floor,” he says. “I thought I might be able to escape from the pirate poem. I hate the pirate poem.”
“What?” Baekhyun says, fake shock in his voice. “How can you not like the masterpiece that is, “I am the world’s foremost pirate. Sitting lightly on my broad shoulders is my trusty red parrot, as we sail the seven deep aquamarine oceans on my fabulous frigate”? You’re letting the side down, Kyungsoo.”
“It doesn’t sound like that,” Chanyeol whines from the corner, where he’s cleaning his guitar. “You’re making it sound worse than it is.”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “You described the sea in three different shades of blue. Yours is so much worse.”
8)
Chanyeol whines, obnoxiously loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun asks, poking his head around Chanyeol’s bedroom door.
“My thesis reads like a thirteen year old’s diary,” Chanyeol complains. “Please help me fix it.”
Baekhyun looks over his shoulder and begins reading. There’s a load of science, a load of internal feelings and what they mean, and then suddenly a whole bit about the cute boy with the catlike smile who always feeds Chanyeol. “I see what you mean,” Baekhyun says, and pats him on the shoulder. “Just try and ease up on how many times you profess your love for this boy so the markers know you’re still serious.” He pauses. “Keep this draft version for when you actually ask Jongdae out. I think he’d appreciate how much you’re in love with him.”
Chanyeol buries his head in his arms and mock-cries.
(He does keep the draft. And Jongdae does love it.)
9)
Baekhyun is on the floor crying again. “Oh, please,” Baekhyun says. “Please call Jongdae a cat one more time. Please tell the world how you want to be inside-”
Kyungsoo throws Chanyeol’s thesaurus at him. It misses him by a good ten centimetres, and opens onto synonyms for “Inside”. Baekhyun cries some more.
“Well, I mean, it could be worse,” Kyungsoo says, his voice tired.
“Aww,” Chanyeol says, with a wide grin. “I’m glad you like it, Soo!”
“I mean, I know you’ve written poems about sex,” Kyungsoo says. “I’ve read your poetry book. I know it could be worse.” He puts on a deeper voice, the one he always uses for mimicking Chanyeol. “Fill me up like a lighthouse at-”
Chanyeol squeaks and throws himself at Kyungsoo.